Inspirations: Fear Her

The 11th episode slot for Series 2 changed hands a couple of times, and so became a bit of a last minute job. For a long time it might have been home to the Stephen Fry Arthurian epic he never got round to finishing. This would have been set in the 1920's, and so the placeholder title was simply "1920's".

Later, the dating had moved to the 1930's, and more detail had emerged - it would be based on Gawain and the Green Knight.

Promised a big budget for flying horses, alien planets and other costly VFX it quickly became apparent that the Fry story couldn't be accommodated in this slot, so it was deferred to Series 3. In the end, Fry proved too busy to complete the piece and it was never produced.

In its place came a story which had been developed for inclusion either in 2006 or in 2007, essentially a spare one for Series 2. It was written by Matthew Graham, who had written for EastEnders as well as his own series such as post-apocalyptic drama The Last Train. RTD had wanted him to write for the 2005 series, but he had been too busy on his copper-out-of-time series Life On Mars.

He was asked to come up with a story which involved only a small group of people, in a confined location - i.e. something cheap. A group trapped in an underground bunker was suggested, but felt to be too restrictive.

Graham's own idea was for a villain who could define beauty quantifiably, and could remove colour from the world.

RTD then asked Graham what kind of story would his six year old son find scary. The colour-draining idea was felt not to fit the bill, and the two eventually hit upon possessed pictures. 

Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, first published in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine in July 1890, was mentioned. Paintings were thought to be quite creepy when the eyes seemed to follow you around the room.

This developed into Graham's idea of pictures coming to life that had been drawn by children, so that they were misshapen, with elongated limbs etc.

Had they stuck to this idea, the episode might have been more favourably received. Instead, they opted to concentrate on people being turned into pictures, rather than the other way round, and we only see pictures moving very briefly in the finished episode - and not particularly scarily at that.

A potential influence is Paperhouse, a 1988 film in which a girl draws a house in which the characters she has added come to life. She can go there and interact with them. She makes friends with a boy who believes himself to be real, and she the imaginary one. She draws her father as an angry figure, and when she rubs his face out, it turns him into a blind ogre. The only way of stopping him is to destroy the part of the drawing of the house where he is.

This film was an adaptation of a novel, Marianne Dreams, which was written by Catherine Storr and published in 1958.

It was RTD who insisted that the story be set in some recognisable locale, such as a suburban street. Younger viewers would be excited to think that the TARDIS could land at the end of their road one day.

However, rather than set the story in the present day a near-future setting was decided upon, with Davies suggesting London 2012 and the forthcoming Olympic Games.

This would allow them to get away with only minimal design work. It was Graham who suggested that the Doctor carry the Olympic torch at one point - so we can see how both men were equally to blame for the mess this ended up as.

The name of the fictional East London street was 'Dame Kelly Holmes Close'. Holmes had just done extremely well at the 2004 Athens Olympics, which had resulted in her being made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2005.

Making the street a Close - i.e. a cul-de-sac - was supposed to add to the claustrophobic atmosphere.

A poster at the TARDIS landing site is for Shayne Wards' Greatest Hits album. He had just won the second series of The X Factor, so having a greatest hits package was supposed to hint at the near future dating. They say nothing dates like the future, however. By 2011 Ward had already been dropped by his record label, and would later turn to acting (appearing on Coronation Street for a couple of years).

Draft titles included "Chloe Webber Destroys The World" and "You're A Bad Girl, Chloe Webber" - both of which were liked but felt to be far too long. The final title of Fear Her was one which Graham didn't even think fitted the story particularly well.

The flower-like Isolus was inspired by the 1978 remake of the classic 1956 sci-fi movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers. In this the alien menace spread through plant spores. Initially deciding on pods, RTD suggested something more delicate like pollen.

Its name comes from the Terry Nation school of naming things - it's isolated from the rest of its kin.

The "Scribble Monster" which attacks Rose was added to the story when it was realised that it was very low in incident.

When the Doctor talks about being threatened by cats in wimples, he's referring to the Cat Nuns of New Earth.

The monster in the closet derived from the same childhood fears which Steven Moffat had far more successfully mined for the Clockwork 'Droid hiding under the bed in The Girl in the Fireplace.

Chloe's mother sings the Australian nursery song Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree to calm her. Graham sang this song to his own children at bed time.

Despite having a mid-summer setting it was realised that the episode would be filmed in January / February, so dialogue had to be added to cover this - the Isolus draining heat from the area.

The Doctor and Rose pretend to be police officers investigating the disappearances. The Doctor calls Rose "Lewis". Detective Sergeant Lewis was the sidekick to Inspector Morse, played by Kevin Whateley, who would go on to have his own successful Oxford-based crime drama series, with one of Billie Piper's ex-husbands as his sidekick.

Advising Rose to be watchful, the Doctor uses the phrase "keep 'em peeled" - i.e. keep your eyes peeled. This had been the catchphrase of Shaw Taylor, presenter of the ATV show Police Five. This five minute segment asked members of the public to assist the police with solving real crimes - a precursor of Crimewatch UK. That was the inspiration for this story's "London Crimecrackers" programme, which is prominent in the episode's Tardisode.

Star Trek is another popular cultural reference, as the Doctor asks Chloe if she can do the Vulcan hand salute. It was first seen in the story Amok Time in September 1967, when Spock greets T'Pau.

David Tennant likened the bedroom scene between the Doctor and Chloe to The Exorcist (1973), in which a priest tries to communicate with an entity possessing a young girl.

The Doctor surprises Rose - and those viewers who only came on board in 2005 - that he was a father once, reminding us that he used to travel with his grand-daughter Susan.

This week's Torchwood mention comes in dialogue from Huw Edwards, who is commenting on the events at the Olympic Stadium - suggesting that even BBC newsreaders know all about the supposedly top secret organisation..

Next time: All those mentions of Torchwood finally take us somewhere - although we've pretty much known what it's all about since the second episode. It's also the day Rose Tyler dies. Except it isn't...